Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey backs the Pentagon's decision to blacklist Anthropic — and says if it were up to him, he would have reacted even more forcefully.
He made the comments in an interview with Colin Demarest on "The Axios Show," our series featuring top Axios reporters interviewing newsmakers shaping politics, business, tech, and culture.
Why it matters: The Pentagon's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk is a move historically reserved for foreign adversaries. It means that other companies who do business with the Pentagon may have to cut ties with the AI giant.
Cheap, mass-produced drones have permanently changed the face of warfare.
Without them, Russia's overwhelming manpower and firepower advantage would grind Ukraine into dust.
Without them, the Houthis are a ragtag militia in Yemen — not a force that brought global shipping to its knees.
Without them, a sanctioned, isolated Iran couldn't inflict nearly as much damage to the most powerful military in world history.
Why it matters: Size no longer guarantees victory. Any nation, any proxy, any rebel group with access to cash and commercial components can now bleed a superpower slowly, expensively and without a clean answer.
President Trump, already at odds with many MAGA leaders over Iran, is getting pressured hard by MAGA activists not to endorse Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) for reelection.
Why it matters: This is the most unified, intense, in-his-face MAGA campaign yet to push Trump into picking sides in a pivotal fight — the GOP establishment or his base. Trump was leaning toward backing Cornyn before MAGA went ballistic, officials tell Axios.
Black and Hispanic audiences are among the fastest-growing groups in podcasting, pushing the medium past talk radio in share of spoken-word listening.
Why it matters: As podcasting becomes mainstream, many creators — especially those who are Black or brown — are building audiences on platforms they don't control.
The U.S. government is treating strikes on Iran like a video game, inviting the country to watch as memes and montages subsume the human cost of war.
Why it matters: The Trump administration didn't invent the gamification of war, nor did it invent wartime propaganda — a tool of statecraft as old as armed conflict itself.
Colleges besieged by AI-generated writing brought back blue-book exams to deter cheating, but some educators say hand-written tests don't showcase students' best work and disadvantage swaths of learners.
Why it matters: Educators say AI cheating is real — if sometimes overstated — but reverting to pen-and-paper tests sidesteps the reality that many employers want graduates who are comfortable using AI tools.
